A "metal fetishist" (Shin'ya Tsukamoto), driven mad by the maggots wriggling in the wound he's made to embed metal into his flesh, runs out into the night and is accidentally run down by a Japanese businessman (Tomorowo Taguchi) and his girlfriend (Kei Fujiwara). The pair dispose of the corpse in hopes of quietly moving on with their lives. However, the businessman soon finds that he is now plagued by a vicious curse that transforms his flesh into iron.
"A Japanese Cyberpunk-horror riff that plays like an old time Godzilla movie with its delirious headlong energy... If David Cronenberg decided to make his version of Terminator, it would look very much like this." New York Daily Newsday
"Scorching Japanese Metalmania! Exhilaratingly profane and delirious... Eraserhead meets Japanese Manga comics.... Eyepopping, quintessential outlaw art." - New York Press
"Tetsuo and Fetishist's transformation into Iron Man becomes a response to the machinization of the individual in a systematically regimented Japan." - Slant Magazine
"A hysterical, histrionic ode to cyber-punk fetishism, Tetsuo owes as much to William Gibson as it does the body horror cinema of David Cronenberg & the stop-motion theatrics of Jan Svankmajer." - Screen Slate